


home is where affection calls

by sarahyyy



Series: home is where you are [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Moving In Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 21:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1757649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahyyy/pseuds/sarahyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It occurs to Enjolras when he’s standing outside the front door of his apartment fruitlessly fishing through his pockets for his house keys, after storming out from Grantaire’s apartment after a particularly bad fight, that he has moved in with Grantaire.</p><p>(Or, the one where Enjolras accidentally moved in with Grantaire.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is where affection calls

It occurs to Enjolras when he’s standing outside the front door of his apartment fruitlessly fishing through his pockets for his house keys, after storming out from Grantaire’s apartment after a particularly bad fight, that he has moved in with Grantaire. He hasn’t been back to his own apartment in ages, most of his things are in Grantaire’s place, and when he’d told Combeferre and Courfeyrac that he was going home after they had dinner together, he hadn’t meant that he was going back to his apartment, but to Grantaire’s.

He thought makes him pause. He wonders if Grantaire has noticed that Enjolras has pretty much moved in with him, wonders if Grantaire minds, wonders if Grantaire is just too polite to tell him not to, and well, panics. He does what he always does in times of trouble then — he calls Combeferre. 

“I can’t get into my apartment, and I think I accidentally moved in with Grantaire,” Enjolras says in lieu of a greeting the moment Combeferre picks up. 

“Spare key under the flowerpot, and you moved in with Grantaire long ago, this isn’t new,” Combeferre answers without missing a beat. 

Enjolras crouches down and looks under the flowerpot for his spare key that he’s quite certain Combeferre made and put there for cases such as these, because he doesn’t remember making any more spares to his own house key beyond the ones he gave to Combeferre and Grantaire. “I can’t remember the last time I came back to my apartment,” he tells Combeferre as he unlocks his door. “I can’t even remember where I put my keys.”

“Are you honestly surprised by this?” Combeferre asks, sounding amused. “You practically moved into his apartment a little while after you started dating him. Courfeyrac and I don’t even bother to go to your apartment to look for you anymore. It’s easier to go straight to Grantaire’s. Have you not noticed?”

Enjolras bites his lip. “No,” he says. “I suppose I haven’t.”

“Why are you back at your apartment?” Combeferre asks. 

“We had a bit of a tiff. It’s a long story, and mostly filled with us being stupid,” Enjolras tells him, and moves to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea, only to find that he is out of tea. He belatedly remembers packing his teas and ground coffee up and bringing them to Grantaire’s place, because Grantaire apparently only has bad coffee, orange juice, and various kinds of alcohol in his apartment. “I don’t even have tea in my apartment anymore,” he tells Combeferre woefully. “Do you want to buy me tea and bring it over?”

Combeferre snorts. “Go back, tell Grantaire you’re sorry for making him upset, and make your own damned tea back home.”

Home. Not Grantaire’s apartment. _Home_. 

“You are a bad friend,” Enjolras tells Combeferre.

“I love you too,” Combeferre replies, and then hangs up on him. 

Enjolras puts his phone down; the kitchen table is covered with a thin layer of dust. 

—

Enjolras, predictably, does not go back to Grantaire’s apartment because he’s an idiot. He settles instead for dusting his own apartment, changing his bedsheets, and doing a load of laundry, because it’s always easier for him to sort out his thinking when he’s nowhere near Grantaire, and also when he’s working. 

He comes up with two things by the time he’s done with the cleaning: 1) he moved in with Grantaire without Grantaire’s consent, and 2) he wants Grantaire’s consent for him to move in with Grantaire. He deliberately doesn’t think about the issue of _what if Grantaire doesn’t want you there?_ because he’s pretty sure if he starts thinking about it, he’ll try to rationalise himself out of wanting to move in with Grantaire, which would be stupid given the fact that he has _already_ moved in with Grantaire without any (major) problems. 

He wants to move in with Grantaire. He likes the momentum they have going on, likes that he sometimes comes home to Grantaire already starting to cook dinner, that he can come up to Grantaire and press a kiss to the base of his neck and have Grantaire turn over and ask him about his day. He likes curling around Grantaire in bed at night, likes letting Grantaire’s warm breath on his skin lull him to sleep. He likes sitting on the couch with Grantaire pressed against his chest, the both of them doing the weekend crossword together. He likes how domestic they have become, and he wants that domesticity to be _official_. He wants Grantaire to _know_ that he’s moved in, wants Grantaire to _want_ him to move in.

He’ll just have to show Grantaire that he’s an amazing person to live with. He can do that. He can start by going home and apologising to Grantaire.

—

Grantaire looks mildly surprised when Enjolras comes back. He’s sitting on the couch, sketchbook propped on his lap, and his look of surprise only intensifies when Enjolras blurts out, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry,” Grantaire echoes. 

“It was a stupid fight,” Enjolras says, and sits down next to him on the couch. When Grantaire doesn’t appear to want to yell at him, he scoots closer to Grantaire and brushes his fingers over the back of Grantaire’s hand. “I don’t want to fight over stupid things.”

Grantaire puts his sketchbook down on the coffee table and curls up into Enjolras’ arms. “I’m sorry, too,” he says, and presses his face into Enjolras’ neck, tightening his arms around Enjolras’ waist. 

They sit quietly like that for a long moment until Grantaire breaks the silence. “Not that I’m complaining, but this is new,” he says. “I expected you to stew for a bit longer.”

“I missed you,” Enjolras says. “I went back to my apartment.” He hopes Grantaire notices that he doesn’t call his own apartment _home_ anymore. “I did some dusting there, thought things over, and decided it was really stupid to be fighting over tiny things.”

He feels Grantaire smile against his skin. 

“Combeferre told you to apologise, didn’t he?” Grantaire asks, pulling away to look at Enjolras. 

“He might have said something,” Enjolras says slowly, hoping that Grantaire doesn’t dismiss his apology just because the idea of apologising didn’t come from him. He meant what he said. 

Grantaire’s smile softens. “I’m glad you came back,” he tells Enjolras. “Dinner is always better when we make it together.”

Their dinner routine is one of the things Enjolras loves the most about living with Grantaire. They’re both busy with their jobs in the day, so most of their time spent together starts in the evening, when they come back home and make dinner together. Enjolras is useless when it comes to seasoning and the actual cooking, but he is pretty handy with a knife, and does most of the prep work for Grantaire. Grantaire, on the other hand, is a genius at working flavours. He always seems to know just what to put into a stew to make it just that much better. 

“We do work very well as a team in the kitchen,” Enjolras says, mentally checking the _Reasons Why Grantaire Shouldn’t Oppose Enjolras Officially Moving In_ column. 

Grantaire just smiles at him and tugs him up the couch and towards the kitchen.

—

Grantaire laughs when Enjolras calls in sick the next morning, and he looks so pleasantly surprised that Enjolras can’t even be bothered to feel guilty about begging off work, and just tugs Grantaire over him until Grantaire is straddling his waist, hands braced on both sides of Enjolras’ head, leaning down to nip at Enjolras’ jaw. 

“What brought this on?” Grantaire asks. 

“Mental health day,” Enjolras tells him, and then kisses him, licks into his mouth and coaxes breathy moans out of Grantaire. “I love you, you know?”

Grantaire smiles and presses his lips to Enjolras’ again, drawing Enjolras’ lower lip in for a quick moment before he pulls back. “I know,” he tells Enjolras. “I love you too.”

—

Over the week, Enjolras tries to bring Grantaire’s attention to all his better qualities in hopes that Grantaire would finally ask him to move in. When the lightbulb in the bathroom goes off, Enjolras volunteers to change it. When they go out shopping for groceries, Enjolras remembers to get Grantaire’s preferred brand of peanut butter, and even lets him buy pulpy orange juice. When Grantaire catches the beginnings of a cold, Enjolras makes him stay in bed and Googles a recipe so that he can make him chicken soup. They’ve been fighting much less, and Enjolras has stopped going into work on weekends to spend more time with Grantaire. They experiment with some new things he knows Grantaire’s been wanting to try in bed, and the sex is _great_ , there are gold stars awarded and all.

He’s doing quite well, if he can say so himself, which makes him wonder why Grantaire isn’t asking him to move in yet. Does Grantaire have a bar that Enjolras hasn’t reached yet? If so, what is it and how can he do better?

He knows that he should probably talk to Grantaire about this, but he doesn’t want to seem too pushy. It bothers him, though, that he’s already trying so hard, but Grantaire doesn’t seem to care that he is. 

Okay, no, that’s not true. Enjolras knows that Grantaire has noticed the change in him, because sometimes he sees Grantaire looking at him from the corner of his eyes with an indescribable look on his face that always turns into a fond look when he catches Enjolras watching him. Grantaire has been affectionate and loving, and _great_ , and it should be enough for Enjolras, because this was obviously good enough for him for entire months before he realised that he moved in, but there is an irrational part of him that wants Grantaire’s permission to move in, and not just sneak his way into staying with Grantaire forever. 

It shouldn’t be a problem, but it is.

—

It all comes to a head one Saturday afternoon. Grantaire has his head in Enjolras’ lap while Enjolras reads to him from the book he was reading before Grantaire finished with his painting and decided to join Enjolras in the living room. 

“What’s going on?” Grantaire asks quietly. His eyes are closed when Enjolras looks away from the book to look down at Grantaire.

“What’s going on with what?” Enjolras asks, setting the book aside, and runs his fingers through Grantaire’s hair, pressing his fingers down harder into Grantaire’s scalp when he feels Grantaire lean into his touch. 

“With you,” Grantaire says, and his eyes flutter open to stare at Enjolras. “You’ve been acting really odd.”

Enjolras frowns, and his fingers still. He’d thought that he was doing good and being an extra nice boyfriend. Has he been going about it entirely wrong? “Is it a bad odd or a good odd?” he asks tentatively.

Grantaire quirks a smile. “Good odd, I suppose,” he says. “I’ve been worrying over why you’ve been acting so nice to me,” he confesses, and his cheeks tinge with a light pink. “My theories were getting wildly out of hand. Eponine thought it would be best if I just asked you.”

Enjolras blinks. “Theories?”

“I started out thinking that you might be feeling guilty about something,” he says slowly, reluctantly, and Enjolras is ridiculously happy that Grantaire is opening up to him even though he feels uncomfortable about it. “I thought you might have accidentally cheated on me or something.”

Enjolras’ gaze goes sharp. “I would _never_ ,” he swears. “I _have_ never.”

“I know, I know,” Grantaire says, and pulls himself up from Enjolras’ lap to a sitting position. “I was being paranoid and ridiculous. It was stupid. I was stupid.”

“You aren’t stupid,” Enjolras says out of reflex. “But I would never cheat on you. I love you.”

“I know,” Grantaire tells him, and smiles. “That theory was discarded really early on. I then went on to wonder if you had, I don’t know, cancer or something incurable, and wanted to spend your last days being nice to me.”

Enjolras has to huff out a laugh at that. “I am physically fine,” he reassures Grantaire. “Completely cancer-free, as far as I know.”

“Then what is it?” Grantaire asks. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“It’s- Fuck,” Enjolras says, and tries his best to summon enough words to explain the whole thing to Grantaire without making a mess out of things. “I went back to my apartment the other day,” he starts, dropping his gaze from Grantaire’s, because he is aware that he’s being ridiculous about the whole thing, and he’s feeling self-conscious about it now, “and I realised that I haven’t there in some time. I don’t even associate my apartment with the feeling of home anymore.”

“Go on,” Grantaire says encouragingly. 

“It occurred to me that I somehow moved in with you without realising,” Enjolras says, feeling his face go hot. “And I liked staying with you, only I wanted it to be official, I wanted you to ask me to, instead of me sneakily burrowing my way in without your informed consent, and I-”

“You tried to be nicer to me so I’d ask you to move in,” Grantaire finishes for him. 

Enjolras nods and when he finally looks up at Grantaire, Grantaire is grinning at him, eyes soft and fond and so _amused_ that Enjolras has to ask, “What?”

“Did it occur to you that maybe I didn’t ask you to move in because you’ve already moved in with me?” Grantaire says, and his grin grows wider. “I didn’t know you didn’t know I tricked you into moving in with me,” he tells Enjolras, amused. “I was so proud of myself when you did. I did my victory dance months ago.”

“Oh,” Enjolras says, but he feels his lips twitch up. “I was being obtuse, wasn’t I?”

“You were,” Grantaire agrees. “But it was adorable, and I’m not complaining.” He takes Enjolras’ hand in his. “I like staying with you, Enjolras. I love waking up to your frowny face and your unintelligible morning babble before you get caffeinated enough to make sense. I love watching the news on TV with you and arguing about state affairs. I love having you around in my apartment. Will you move in with me?” 

“I suppose I’ll have to. All my things are already here,” Enjolras says, trying and failing not to grin like an idiot. Enjolras leans in to kiss Grantaire, easing his way into Grantaire’s mouth, tongue mapping the grooves of Grantaire’s teeth, deepening the kiss when Grantaire moans into it. “Also, I think my lease is ending soon, and I didn’t put in an extension notice. Really, I don’t think I have much choice.”

“Oh, is that why you were so eager to move in?” Grantaire teases. 

“Yeah, well, the fact that I’m ridiculously in love with the idiot who owns the apartment might have something to do with it too,” he tells Grantaire, and grins into their next kiss. 

—

They invite their friends for an official housewarming party, and everyone is amused because it’s not like Enjolras hasn’t been staying with Grantaire for the past few months, but Enjolras is beaming and he feels ridiculously happy, and he knows that Grantaire does too, and that’s really all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [here on Tumblr](http://sarah-yyy.tumblr.com/), come say hi! :D


End file.
